Pakistan was behind attacks on U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan, says top White House aide

Pressure: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, pressed Pakistan to break its links with militant groups in a discussion with Pakistan's army chief

The U.S. has accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of using the Haqqani Network to wage a 'proxy war' in Afghanistan while applying pressure on Islamabad to cut ties with insurgent groups fighting Nato forces.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pressed Pakistan to break its links with militant groups, in a four-hour discussion with Pakistan’s army chief.

'We covered the need for the Haqqani Network to disengage, specifically the need for the ISI to disconnect from Haqqani and from this proxy war that they’re fighting,' he said in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

'The ISI has been doing this - working for - supporting proxies for an extended period of time.

'It is a strategy in the country and I think that strategic approach has to shift in the future.'

Washington
blames the Haqqani Network, one of the most feared Taliban-linked
groups fighting in Afghanistan, for last week’s attack on the U.S.
embassy and other targets in Kabul.

Some 25 people died in the 20-hour attack on the embassy and other official buildings, including 11 civilians, among them five children.

It
has in the past suggested that Pakistan’s powerful Directorate of the
ISI maintains ties to the network to guarantee itself a stake in any
political settlement in Afghanistan when American troops withdraw.

Battle: A Nato helicopter flies next to the building which Taliban insurgents took over during their attack on Kabul last week

Attack: Afghan police officers fire towards the Taliban occupied building in the raid in which a civilian was killed and 16 people wounded

Accusing the ISI of using the
Haqqanis to wage a 'proxy war' goes further, and risks fueling tensions
between Islamabad and Washington, already at breaking point since Osama
bin Laden was killed in a surprise raid in Pakistan in May.

'In
the past, they have been saying that Pakistan is looking the other way
with the Haqqanis, but this term - using them as proxies for Pakistani
interests - that is something new,' said Rahimullah Yusufzai, editor of
the Peshawar edition of the News daily and an expert on
Afghanistan.

Pakistan denies that it still has ties to the Haqqanis.

HAQQANI NETWORK

The Haqqani Network is one of the most feared Taliban-linked groups fighting in Afghanistan and perhaps the most divisive issue between Pakistan and the U.S..

Washington has repeatedly pressed
Pakistan to go after the network, which it believes enjoys sanctuary in
Pakistan’s unruly ethnic Pashtun tribal region of North Waziristan on
the Afghan border.

The group’s patriarch, Jalaluddin Haqqani, gained notoriety as an anti-Soviet mujahideen commander in Afghanistan in the 1980s.

His bravery and ability to organise
mujahideen fighters won him funding and weapons from U.S. and Pakistani
intelligence services and Saudi Arabia.

A U.S. Military Academy report
published in July said the Haqqani Network was believed to be made up of
several hundred core members who can draw on a pool of roughly 10,000
to 15,000 fighters.

The group’s leader, Sirajuddin
Haqqani, said last week that it no longer had sanctuaries in
Pakistan, and instead felt secure inside eastern Afghanistan.

'The Haqqanis are the product of the Soviet Union and Afghan war, and we were partners and they are sons of the soil,' Interior Minister Rehman Malik said after a meeting with FBI Director Robert Mueller in Islamabad yesterday.

'But I assured him (Mueller) they are not on the Pakistani side, but if there is any intelligence which is provided by the U.S., we will definitely take action.'

The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had delivered an ultimatum to Islamabad in recent days, warning that if it did not cut ties with the Haqqani Network and help eliminate its leaders then 'the United States will act unilaterally'.

'Look at the language, it’s clear the Americans are very frustrated with the Pakistanis. I think they are preparing the ground for more action against the Haqqanis,' Mr Yusufzai said.

He said the U.S. could step up drone attacks from Afghanistan in North Waziristan or launch long-range attacks on Haqqani hideouts as they did in their helicopter raid on bin Laden in a town just two hours up the road from Islamabad.

Launching a larger military operation would be extremely difficult in the mountainous terrain of North Waziristan and would risk hardening anti-American sentiment in Pakistan.

There has been no public statement suggesting that the U.S. might itself mount a full-scale offensive against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan, and the official line in background briefings is only that all options are on the table.

While keeping the pressure on Pakistan over its links to insurgent groups, U.S. officials are also trying to shore up relations with a nuclear-armed country it considers a strategic ally in the fight against Islamist militancy.

'What I believe is the relationship with Pakistan is critical,' Admiral Mullen said.

'We walked away from them in the past and I think that cut-off has a lot do with where we are.'

A senior U.S. official also revealed that, despite the strains over last week’s attack in Kabul, there had been incremental improvements in the relationship in recent weeks.

'I don’t have a sense right now that it’s falling off the cliff again,' he said.